


Giggles

by illyriantremors



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Az POV, Babysitting, F/M, Fluff, Mini-Fic, Shadows - Freeform, ridiculous fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 08:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8136833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyriantremors/pseuds/illyriantremors
Summary: A very short look at how Uncle Az might keep his niece occupied with his shadows one day while he and Morrigan have babysitting duty. Warning: Extreme Fluff!





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day 3′s Shadows prompt for Moriel Week hosted by @acotarshipweek! Enjoy, friends.

In front of Azriel, there is a wall. The way the sunlight of midday Velaris hits it through the open windows of the townhouse cast the wall in a stark white light. If Feyre were there, she would call it a canvas and find a way to bend the light to paint it a wide array of colors more dazzling than the stars themselves.

But Azriel is not full of color as Feyre is. He has a different medium to work with, but one he is as equally skilled at as she with her beloved paints.

He sits in front of the wall and stares down at the bright-eyed girl sitting patiently in his lap. He’s a little nervous this isn’t going to work, but Morrigan told him to try something new today.

With a steadying breath and taking comfort in the fact that they are alone with no one else to witness what he is about to do, Az wraps his hands securely around the girl’s midsection and focuses on the wall. The first of his shadows creeps in.

At first, it’s nothing more than an inky jet-black blob easing onto the surface where it might disrupt the fragile white canvas the sun projects. Az tenses waiting to see if the girl might cry out, the difference in color is so stark and bleak, but she doesn’t. Instead, her eyes go very wide transfixed on his shadows and what they might do. But she is not afraid.

No daughter of the High Lord of the Night Court and Feyre Cursebreaker would ever be afraid of a mere shadow.

Az inclines his head to urge the shadow further. It shifts and where before there was an incoherent blob of nothing now sits a dog. With a nod, Az sends the dog off running until it has chased its tail from one side of the room to the next and back.

She giggles in his lap, her feet curling in until she’s caught her toes in her hands and pulled them up almost all the way to her chin. He decides he wants to hear that sound again. It’s happy and carefree, everything he’s not except when he’s with his Morrigan.

So Azriel sends another shadow splashing onto the canvas. There are two dogs now and Azriel’s hands have become their mouths snapping open and shut as if to bark. The little girl giggles madly.

Azriel can’t stop. The sound is too light on his heart to give it up. A cascade of shadows descend upon the walls of the room encompassing them with every order of creature they know be it dog or cat, bird or fish, lion or tiger, and all the leaves and waters and trees in which they live. As swallows fly and bees buzz, the little girl wriggles frantically in Azriel’s lap scared she will miss the tiniest detail. She’s too small to support herself on her own, so Az drops his hands from orchestrating the symphony of life that has erupted in his townhouse in order to lift his niece up high above his head so that she might watch the shadows everywhere as they dance of their own accord. Even so small, her smile is charming, much like Feyre’s, beneath those violet eyes Azriel would know anywhere.

Hands slide over Azriel’s shoulders and down his chest. The familiar scent of honey and chocolate meets his senses as Morrigan leans down to whisper in his ear. “Look at you,” she says. He can hear the teasing smile in her voice. “You’re a natural.”

“It’s hardly difficult when the audience is so easy to please,” Az says as a butterfly flits off the wall to briefly lay a kiss on his niece’s nose. She erupts in a fresh wave of giggles. Azriel sighs into that sound. He wonders what it would be like if her eyes were hazel instead of violet and her hair bright gold instead of an ashy blonde. The idea makes him nervous even if he’s a little intrigued and he’s glad Morrigan is content to play the aunt instead of the mom with him. He finds the smile playing out on his niece’s face and lets that be enough.

“This is nice,” he says.

Morrigan pulls back to look at her Azriel with her brows lifted in surprise and he wonders if saying that out loud was a mistake. He knows she’s aware of how uncomfortable children can make him. But her face quickly pulls into something as loving and peaceful as their niece’s tiny baby giggles before she reaches down to kiss him on the cheek and says, “Yes it is, Az. Yes it is.”

On the wall, one of the shadows shaped like a swallow jumps out the window and soars suddenly very high into the sun.

xx


End file.
